How DBT Will Help You Accept Your Body

As we’ve discussed in our Body Image Groups, there are skills we can have in our back pockets (or front pockets, or crossbody or wherever you want to keep your skills handy) for when we aren’t sure how to handle ourselves.

Even when we’ve decided we want to be better, do better, think better and feel better, there are often scenarios that come up where we just don’t know what the right course of action is. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or DBT, has a ton of skills that you can use in times of distress to: re-focus, maintain your values, and determine “what DO I DO?”

In the coming weeks’ posts I’ll offer a handful of my favorite DBT Skills so that you can start learning them and trying them out in your own day-to-day. There are lots of resources for you to learn DBT if you’d like, and I highly recommend taking plenty of time learning about each skill from different sources, especially if you notice that one or two of these skills is helpful. Each skill is useful in a different way. Some may make more sense to you than others, which is fine. Take what you like and leave the rest. But I do recommend you checking out other sources of DBT info, because maybe I share a skill with you that is actually awesome, but it seems dumb and finally makes more sense to you when it is described by someone else. Likewise, maybe a skill you read about here doesn’t seem to even apply to your life, but if in a week or two you read about the same skill from Marsha Linehan (the PNWern Psychologist who brought us this theory) or talk about it in a DBT Skills group, it may resonate because it was presented at a more applicable time and place.

DBT Skills fall into four categories, and we’ll review skills from each in the coming posts, so start making notes now about what you are anticipating. Or, what you already know about and want to refresh on or amp up for yourself.

•Mindfulness - so you are present enough to know you are in need of a skill and you can determine which to use

•Distress Tolerance - so you can accept and get through the inevitable pain and disappointment involved in living life

•Emotional Regulation - so when big feelings come, and they will, you know how to handle yourself without ignoring your feelings, and also without letting them boss you around

•Interpersonal Skills - so you can create and maintain relationships, which are both difficult and rewarding, and relationships are a crucial component of a life worth living

Which of these categories most intrigues you?